Guns Save Life

The Illinois State Police proposed rulemaking announcement that medical marijuana card users would have to surrender their 2nd Amendment rights to use marijuana as a drug is probably not going to stand constitutional muster in the courts.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that police have no grounds to strip gun rights from medical marijuana users solely for taking the drug.  Here’s a report from the Oregonian.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled this morning that Oregon sheriffs have no grounds to deny concealed handgun licenses to the state’s 39,774 medical marijuana cardholders — solely because they use pot.

Specifically, the high court said Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon and Jackson County Sheriff Michael Winters were wrong to deny concealed handgun permits to four law-abiding medical pot users on the basis that doing so would violate the federal Gun Control Act. The act states that “an unlawful user … of any controlled substance” can’t own a gun. The sheriff’s argued that the federal act trumps Oregon’s 13-year-old medical marijuana law, which unlike federal law legalizes pot possession for patients with qualifying a

Bruce Rauner:  The guy running a ton of commercials on TV in his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor has ginned up a lot of support.

That’s despite the fact his campaign manager Ron Gidwitz gave $5,000 to an anti gun group in Chicago.  Really.  Read all about it.

Here’s his version of the “Kerry for President” crass pandering shot seeking gun owner support:

Bruce Rauner and Ron Gidwitz. They say they support your gun rights, while Gidwitz is funding the anti-gunners. Then again, Barack Obama says the same thing about supporting our gun rights.

Remember this picture?

Illinois’ new medical marijuana law is pretty strict (not unlike the new concealed carry law).

One little bugaboo:  Those seeking a medical marijuana card would lose their rights to own or possess firearms in IL.

It’s all in the Chicago Tribune today:

Patients who want to qualify for medical marijuana in Illinois would have to be fingerprinted for a background check and pay $150 a year — and give up their right to own a gun, state officials proposed Tuesday.

The plan outlines how adults who have any of 41 specified medical cond

Little Miss Barbie Doll Wendy Davis.

PANDER:

pan·der
[pan-der] Show IPA
noun Also, pan·der·er.
1.  a person who furnishes clients for a prostitute or supplies persons for illicit sexual intercourse; procurer; pimp.
2.  a person who caters to or profits from the weaknesses or vices of others.
3.  a go-between in amorous intrigues.
verb (used without object)
4.  to act as a pander; cater basely: to pander to the vile tastes of vulgar persons.
verb (used with object)
5.  to act as a pander for.

Wendy Davis, woman who worked to drive gun shows off of Ft. Worth, Texas city property when she was on the city council there, has tried to deflect attention from a litany of scandals by shamelessly pandering to gun owners

Illinois State Representative Laura Fine was planning on holding a virulently anti-gun town hall meeting Wednesday evening in her district to lambast the new Illinois carry bill.

On deck to support her was the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.

The plan:  frighten her constituents with baseless fear-based demagoguery and emotional tugs on the heartstrings.  No doubt blood dancing and bloody shirt waving was on the agenda for little Laura Fine.

The silly little woman was rumored to want to use the event to launch a campaign seek the repeal of Illinois’ new carry bill at the event.  Like that’s gonna happen.

Nobody ever accused her of being forward thinking.  Unless you count “Forward” in the sense of Barack Obama’s campaign slogan (and the old communist use of the word in their campaign propaganda).

Well, our friend

Andy over at Ace of Spades has a fabulous review of Lone Survivor.

There’s spoilers there, and here’s the deal:  It’s like Titanic.

The boat sinks.

Spoiler in this movie:  They all die except Marcus.

And they kill a whole lot of Taliban riff-raff along the way.

Anyway, Andy does a magnificent job on a magnificent movie.

I saw the movie last week.

I was reluctant to watch it as I figured it would be like Saving Private Ryan was at  the end.  In that movie, I might have wept like a little schoolgirl at the end, just like everyone else in the theater that day.  They should have issued Kleenex at Saving Private Ryan.

Lone Survivor wasn’t as intense as that, but it was still emotional at the end.

Read his review.  It’s superlative and spot on in every respect.

Ace of Spades

The film in one word: Intense

My Moron recommen

JOIN US! Join Tom Shafer, Don Gwinn, Brent Harney and all the other regulars on Monday, February 3rd for a fun evening of gun rights and good fellowship at the Sangamon County Rifle Association meeting. We’re at the Supreme Buffet on S. MacArthur Blvd. in Springfield. Come out and eat around 5:30. Meeting begins at 6:30.

by Don Gwinn
Sangamon County Rifle Association Chairman

(GunsSaveLife) -  My friends, I hope you’ve enjoyed the holidays and the Polar Vortex, because it’s about to get pretty busy around here for anyone with an interest in gun rights.

Law makers, local business owners and national corporations are all going to be making big decisions about gun rights in Springfield and Illinois soon, with some of the biggest being what role to play in implementing, blocking, or ignoring the arrival of private citizens with hard-won carry permits and

Harvey Weinstein at some Hollywood fete. Weinstein is far outside mainstream America in the make-believe world of Hollywood.  He does associate with real Americans (see above), so it’s not surprising his beliefs would be so far out-of-touch with America.

A fabulous commentary piece by Jonathon Tobin at Commentary Magazine entitled Guns, Hollywood Hypocrisy, and the NRA.

Here’s the money quote:

As we have seen in the last year, grass roots support for the rights of gun owners has repeatedly trumped big-money campaigns funded by people such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others who agree with Weinstein. As long as the political left and its Hollywood ATM machines keep showing their contempt for the Constitution,

How quickly can things go sideways?

This body camera recording a police encounter shows how quickly things can go from an uncooperative driver who just had a car crash threatening to cut himself to a deadly force encounter.

The cop makes contact with the guy about 1:40.

The guy advances on the drawn gun of the cop and despite repeated commands to stay back, to drop it and retreating by the cop (sound familiar for those of you who have had training?), less than ten seconds later, the cop fires repeatedly.

Good shoot?

You bet.

If you’ve got a drawn gun on someone who is acting irrationally (threatening to cut yourself is irrational behavior, as is refusing to discuss a simple incident) and they advance upon you, that should be a clue that things aren’t going to end well for one party or another.  If you’re unable to retreat with complete safety, then it’s up to you to decide which half of that equation will go home to their family and loved ones.

The video is also a good lesson about being able to handle your gear.  If you’re fumbling a draw or grip on your gun as Mr. Knife Wielder is advancing on you, particularly within 21 feet as was the case in this video, then you’re probably going to be toast.

We’re going to need a LOT more snow than we’ve been recently having to cover up the senseless violence plaguing Chicago for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his police superintendent Garry “Streetlight Assassin” McCarthy.

As a light snow falls, Chicago police officer video records a dead body and the scene of the fatal shooting in the 4900 block of Huron Street in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 17, 2014. (Photo and caption courtesy Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

Fudging crime stats can only do so much to fool the public.  People still see dead bodies in the streets.  The families who haven’t been victimized themselves still hear from their friends and neighbors how violent crime has touc

Remember this disgusting so-called man?

Tyler Smith stands back with two of his sons as wife Katie blasts pumpkins Friday at their home in Buckley. Smith started the survivalist group Spartan Survival to protect his family from a doomsday event. Smith will be featured on “Doomsday Preppers” at 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday on the National Geographic Channel. DEAN J. KOEPFLER — Staff photographer

Back in November 2013, Tyler Smith announced to all of America on NatGeo’s “Doomsday Preppers” of his grand plan for emergencies: to dress up in homemade armor and use his guns to shoot other people and steal their stuff.

In a story with the local Buckley, Washington News-Tribune, Tyler Smith bragged:

“We’re not in it to stockpile. We’re in it to take what you have and there’s nothing you can do to stop us,” Tyler Smith says. “We are your worst nightmare, and we

First of all, the Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” clause should apply to concealed carry licenses.

And here’s what happens when they don’t.  Some douchebag with a badge in Maryland thought he would pull over a card-carrying good guy and try to jam him up on a gun charge.

Well, guess what?  The law-abiding good guy was…  a law-abiding good guy.

And the douche cop, who frankly needs to be tarred and feathered for violating the civil rights of this family (and odds are this isn’t the first time he’s pulled this stunt), is still working.

…And some folks wonder why we tell people to not trust cops.

Drive like a pro, thanks to tips from a pro over at Popular Mechanics.

Teaser:

In eight years as a truck driver, Alan Wrobel has driven 810,000 miles (accident-free) in 45 states and Ontario. He now covers Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, and Wisconsin for a beverage distributor. Here’s his advice on how to handle yourself when the snow starts falling:

When you face a nasty winter storm, use your best judgment. Don’t go out unless you have to, and always make sure you have an emergency kit, warm blankets, and rations in the car. Now, here are some tips, basic and advanced, to help ensure you won’t need to use that emergency kit.

Relax:

Breathe and stay calm. Panic causes people to overreact. You need to focus.

Slow Down:

Drive only as fast as your abilities and the capabilities of the vehicle permit for the road conditions. If you’re out of practice on snow and ice, slow down. If your tires are bad, slow down. If your car has a low ride height, it won’t handle accumulating snow well. Again, just slow down.

Be Smooth:

Your actions need to be controlled and deliberate. Hard accelerat

We’ve seen reports that Wal-Mart is taking down the “No Guns” signage, thanks to gun owners politely contacting them and explaining the confusion the signs were causing.  GSL joined with other gun rights groups in encouraging gun owners to make their voices heard and with a little tact and finesse, it seems the signs are coming down as we wanted.

Nice job, everyone!

We will update this as we have a chance to run it down.

Once again, we see that the only thing that stops a bad person with evil in their heart is a good guy with a gun.

In Portland, a disgruntled man with no shortage of previous arrests thought he was going to “show them” after getting turned away from admission for being an obnoxious jerk.  He returned wearing a Halloween mask and carrying a gun and opened fire.

Previous booking photos for Thomas Hjelmeland.

He didn’t count on one of the customers in the bar pulling his own pistol and shooting him darn near dead right there.

Of course, Mom’s Demand Action (here’s a hint, girls:  go to a strip club), the Kiddie-porn Mayors Against Guns, the Brady Campaign and Gabby Giffords and her hubby are nowhere to be found to explain to us how we would all be safer if the guy inside the club had been

CalGuns is reporting that Ruger is about to abandon the California market for semi-autos thanks to that state’s insane gun control laws.  (Gun laws that people like Dick Metcalf would screech as “reasonable”).

(CalGuns) – Ruger is going to stop selling semiautomatic pistols in California:

In perhaps one of the more shocking discoveries at the 2014 SHOT Show, Ruger spokesperson Kevin Reid revealed that Ruger was going to let it’s entire California Semiautomatic pistol roster “…drop off…” the CA Department of Justice Approved Handgun List.

It seems that in Ruger’s slavish dedication to the concept of “continuous improvement”, and that California is milking some $ 500 per pistol per year to stay on the list AND that microstamping is now the rule, Ruger has alread

Dick Metcalf: Unemployed. Until his next formal job offer comes from an anti-gun group.

“The hijacking of our movement by these radical extremists causes me to fear for the future of the right I have spent my adult life fighting to defend . . . When we engage in noisy, extremist rhetoric rejecting all firearms regulation whatsoever, or refuse to acknowledge the plain fact that constitutionally validated regulations and statutes already exist, we risk alienating the American mainstream. And if we lose that mainstream, we will lose this war.” Dick Metcalf, Target: Me [via politico.com]

Go ahead and read the whole thing.  Have anti-nausea medication close by thoug

by John Boch

Guns Save Life has been online in our current blog form for about fifteen months now and we continue to grow.

Personally, I’ve always worked hard to grow and improve.

One of my favorite strategies is to identify someone doing things well and then work to do better than that.

In this case, my role model was our sister gun rights group, the internet-based IllinoisCarry.com.

IllinoisCarry.com has been around for about eight or nine years now.  They’ve got themselves an Illinois-centric forum along with a blog and other aspects of their website.

All in all, they run a pretty good operation over there and have had steady growth in both traffic and number of registered “members”.   In the past five years, their members (who are also often overlapping members of more traditional gun rights groups like the NRA, ISRA, GSL, SCRA, and others) have done quite a bit of grunt work with the Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day.

To their credit, many of these same people have also organized a series of community meetings promoting right-to-carry throughout the state, including in the heart of gun haters, Chicagoland.

Illinois Carry’s spokesman Valinda Rowe is a charismatic speaker and has won awards with her tire

Honest Abe Lincoln once was famously quoted as saying, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

in the past couple of days, we’ve seen a pair of stories about low-information legislators that boggle the mind.

Let’s start with our neighbors in Missouri.

Low-information legislator of the year candidate from Missouri, Democrat State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal with her bedtime reading material.

Democrat State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal from Jefferson City, Missouri introduced a new bill, Senate Bill 549, that would require parents to register their guns with their schools when they enroll their children.  Parents would face a $100 fine for failing to register each gun and would be required to notify the school of additional gun purchases.  The bill would also require these same families to lock up their safety, charging parents

Walmart prohibits on-duty employees and vendors in their stores from carrying weapons as a matter of corporate policy in all fifty states.

With Illinois poised to join 49 other states with law-abiding, licensed good guys carrying firearms on their person, Wal-Mart’s corporate people have caused all sorts of consternation among gun owners in Illinois with the posting of new signs in all Illinois stores, reiterating this corporate policy.

The sign looks similar to the official sign that the Illinois State Police has directed to be posted for businesses wishing to ban carry in their buildings:

This similarity has quite a few people crying “foul!&#8221